From Collision to Escape: Cenozoic Surface to Mantle Dynamics of Central Anatolia
Abstract
In Anatolia, a transition from subduction to collision and escape has created complex stress fields from extension to contraction, and fluxes of mass and heat in the form of distributed and localized strain, magma transfer, and migrating topography, drainage patterns, and depositional systems. Deformation has been widespread throughout the Anatolian plate for much of the Cenozoic, but is now apparently highly localized along lithosphere-scale strike-slip faults at its northern and south/eastern boundaries. The interior of the Anatolian plate displays large sub-crustal seismic velocity gradients that coincide with the location of Neogene volcanic provinces and strike-slip faults, and seismic tomography has captured subducting oceanic slabs at various stages of demise (tear, break-off, complete removal). Central Anatolia contains a well-preserved record of the >5 million year transition from collision to escape, including volcanic activity that is connected to slab dynamics as well as inherited lithosphere structures; marine to non-marine basin deposits that trace the history of landscape, drainage patterns, sediment dispersal, and paleoelevation; and evolving landforms that are affected by a network of strike-slip faults and record a dynamically supported plateau that resulted from Mio-Pliocene uplift. An international, multi-disciplinary team has embarked on a 5-year, NSF-supported project titled "Continental Dynamics: Central Anatolia Tectonics (CD-CAT)" to explore the spatial and temporal connections between surface and deep mantle as Anatolia transitioned from subduction to escape.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.T13I..02W
- Keywords:
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- 8110 TECTONOPHYSICS / Continental tectonics: general